Casinos are multi-billion dollar industries. Even though legalized gambling is a relatively young industry in this country, developed only within the past twenty to fifty years, it continues to grow as the general social climate becomes more liberal. The rise of the independent Native American nations has resulted in additional recent growth of the casino industry, which can also be seen in riverboat, marine and other off-shore gambling.
Two elements are generally required for a casino to operate effectively. The first, and obvious element, is the monetarily endowed gambler. The chance to "make it big" is enough to attract almost anyone with some money burning in their pocket, other than perhaps the trained statistician and the born pessimist. The con-artist gambler, however, who manages to reverse the odds of winning by cheating and defeating the system, costs casinos millions of dollars each year in lost revenues, which ultimately results in decreased revenues to the state and community.
The second necessary element for an effective casino operation is an efficient casino management and security system. Hundreds of people in each casino are paid a substantial amount of money just to observe the gamblers, in addition to the thousands of dollars spent on electronic surveillance and the personnel who monitor such equipment. Dealers are schooled and trained in techniques which are supposed to be harmonized throughout the industry, focusing on the shuffle, card handling, and player association and relation. The interaction between the dealers and the gamblers is the most scrutinized, since hundreds of dollars can be exchanged in a single hand.
The dealer/player interaction is, for the most part, monitored by electronic surveillance and roving observers. Electronic surveillance usually takes the form of electronic camera globes which blanket the walls and ceilings of the casinos, and which appear to serve more of a deterrent purpose than a true constant surveillance function. For the most part, the cameras, or the monitoring personnel for such cameras, only monitor those tables which have been reported as containing observed questionable activity. Therefore, most of the time, any given table goes unmonitored. Part of the reason for this is that very close attention normally has to be paid to any given table to detect out of order occurrences, particularly considering the reduced scale images of the monitors, and it simply becomes too expensive to assign trained watchers to monitor each table even if they could observe it directly.
There are three potential problem areas that monitoring systems are supposed to alleviate. The first, and most obvious problem area, is the gambler who cheats without the aid of another human being. This person may surreptitiously and illegally increase or decrease his or her stakes during the play of the game, or surreptitiously and illegally move his or her wager from one part of the table to another after the fate of the game has been decided. The second, and not so obvious problem area, is the dealer who cheats without the aid of another human being. The dealer may clear the losing gamblers's chips from a table once the play has ended, and secretly divert a chip or two from the chip bin to his or her own pocket. The third problem area occurs when a dealer and a player act in concert to cheat the casino. This "symbiotic" relationship can be one of the most difficult to detect, since the outward manifestations and communications may not be as clear to a roving observer or hidden camera as would a gambler who physically moves a chip from one table location to another or a dealer who appropriates chips or the like.
The gambler who cheats by moving chips is usually the primary focus of security measures. Experienced cheaters have a way of maneuvering themselves in such a way as to avoid detection by any cameras or roving observers, usually by huddling over their positions with their backs to the cameras and their bodies over the playing area. Cheaters also use the placement of their cocktail drinks upon the casino table as an avenue to move chips. A chip, hidden in the hand used to grasp or pick up a drink from the table, is inconspicuously added to the cheater's betting pile as the drink is being returned to the table. This "taking a sip of a cocktail" hand motion may also be substituted by the facade of "taking a smoke from a cigarette." A chip, hidden in the hand used to grasp a cigarette from an ashtray, is inconspicuously added to the cheater's betting pile as the cigarette is being returned to the ashtray. The cheating gambler is a particular problem, because while their cheating techniques follow certain patterns, each has his or her own variations, and it is basically necessary to obtain clear evidence of cheating before the cheater can be arrested or barred from casino premises.